The present invention relates to a device for joining the corners of the frame members of a picture frame mainly made of a metal or a hard plastic and belongs to International Class A47G1/00.
In the case of a conventional metal or plastic picture frame, as shown in FIGS. 5-7, an elongated frame member is cut into halves each having a predetermined length thereby providing a pair of frame members and the adjacent ends of frame members are interconnected with each other by means of L-Shaped joint members so that a picture frame G as shown in FIG. 5 is provided as is well known in the art. When the ends of the adjacent frame members are joined together, one end of an L-shaped joint member 1 is inserted into one end of an upper frame member 2 while the other end of the L-shaped joint member 1 is inserted to one end of a side frame 3 as shown in FIG. 6 and then the L-shaped joint member 1 is securely joined to the upper and side frames 2 and 3 with a plurality of screws 4, whereby the upper and side frames 2 and 3 are securely joined to each other.
In this case, it is a cumbersome and time consuming operation to tighten a plurality of screws 4 at each corner of the picture frame G. In order to join the upper and side frame members 2 and 3 at right angles relative to each other, the ends of the upper and side frames 2 and 3 must be cut obliquely at predetermined angles. Furthermore in order to make the obliquely cut ends 2a of the upper frame member 2 and the oblique cut ends 3a of the side frame member 3 into intimate contact with each other, the screws 4 must be tightened while the obliquely cut ends 2a and 3a are forcibly pressed against each other. If there results any space between them, the screws 4 must be loosened and re-tightened. As a result, it takes a long time to assemble a picture frame G.
Therefore, the conventional picture frames are considerably unconveninet to those who wish to remove an old picture or the like from a picture frame and put a new picture into it. Furthermore, a screwdriver must be used.